


Go to bed ...

by NamparaMyHome (Cormelas)



Series: Betwixt [5]
Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: (1x03), F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:37:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4395668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cormelas/pseuds/NamparaMyHome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Go to bed!  Got to bed now!”  Ross barked.  How had lips that pressed themselves to hers so sweetly mere seconds before turn pursed and harsh?  Demelza knew – a shift in the mood winds.  She had come to know that certain things would cause her master to swing from quiet thought to stormy brooding, from casual chatter to curt grunts, from alacrity to bitterness.  What was it this time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go to bed ...

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the estate of Winston Graham, various publishers including but not limited to Pan Macmillan and the BBC. 
> 
> Notes: The story occurs between the scenes of the Poldark 2015 episodes as aired on the PBS US broadcasts, which are disappointingly shorter than the BBC episodes. I have not read the books, nor do I know what happens in future episodes when the B/TWS are written. My apologies for inaccuracies based on later canon.

“Go to bed! Got to bed now!” Ross barked. How had lips that pressed themselves to hers so sweetly mere seconds before turn pursed and harsh? Demelza knew – a shift in the mood winds. She had come to know that certain things would cause her master to swing from quiet thought to stormy brooding, from casual chatter to curt grunts, from alacrity to bitterness. What was it this time?

Ross had just been jerked from his self-pity to anger by his petulant kitchen maid. How could she do such a thing? But just look at her; she was exquisite. Her tears then rent him to remorse and apology, although he didn’t quite apologize, just said that she should not take what he said to heart as he was not himself just then. And as soon as he said it, he thought “ _Who am I, then_? _Who or what is 'myself?'_ ” And the answer stared back at him with a pitiful pout. He was her master and she had disappointed him, and that crushed her. He hated how her sorrow made him feel. He wanted, no, he needed to remove that pain from between them – his and hers – right that instant. What was strong enough to do that?

His lips were faster than his reason. He grabbed at those quivering lips with his own to stop them from trembling, to tell her how much she meant to him, to feel the warm remedy they offered his numbed soul. And the fluttering feeling in his chest urged him on. Tasting more of her lips, holding her sides, feeling her soft skin with his face, breathing her deep into his lungs, he was, for the first time in an age, self-ish. He pulled back. “ _I cannot do this to her_ ,” he thought. “ _She is too sweet to use for my benefit_.”

“What is it? What did I do wrong?” Demelza pleaded.

“I did not take you from your father for this,” Ross fired back, not really sure why he said it as that was not at all weighing on him. It was all he could come up with to cover the enormity of his feelings.

“What does it matter what you took me for?” she protested.

And then came those stinging words that added to the pain of letting go of those lips. This was the mood swing of all mood swings. Demelza had no idea how to handle this one. She sank to her knees after he turned away and left her. Was he really angry at himself? Was he kissing her or kissing Elizabeth in his mind? Would he be soothed by her letting him have control over her, even if she was a mere object for his use? She resolved to try.

The knock was barely audible, but as Ross was awake, it was loud enough to dry his throat and purse his lips. He wet them before bidding her entry, but the door had already begun to move.

“What is it?”

“The dress,” she said breathily. “It unfastens down the back.” She dared walk into his bedchamber and across to his bed. By god she had spirit. She turned her back to him, a little defiantly and with more than a little subservience. She was surrendering in her own way.

Ross untied the bow of lacing at the top of the dress and with gentle fingers pulled apart the intertwined ties. Her back was open to him, with all of its pain manifested in scars from beatings and thrashings at the hands of a man who Ross himself had sought revenge against for these very scars. Seeing the scars again brought Ross back to when he first saw them in the public house that long ago day. He was overcome with the same flutter in his heart, the same need to kiss the pain away, the same remedy to his own torment. He could hear her struggling to contain her breathing and see her small form tremble as she exhaled.

Ross’s hands remained on the opening of the dress as he leaned in to her ear. “You know what people say of us?”

“Yes.”

“If we behave like this, it will be true.” Ross’s words were like the judge’s sentence handed down that day, a verdict of the reality of what was happening between them.

“Then let it be true.” She was giving herself to him, utterly. There was to no longer be a Ross and a Demelza. There would be Ross and Demelza as one.

He slid his right hand inside the dress around to her smooth stomach. He flattened his palm against her navel and drew it up her torso with his thumb leading. His hand crossed to her left breast where his thumb teased at her nipple. Demelza lurched under his lips, which had been slowly climbing her neck towards her right ear.

Demelza spun around to face him, delicately dropping the dress to the floor and keeping her flesh in contact with has palm. Her lips did what they needed to do, which was meet his. Her need was to give him what he needed, to make him feel again - to let her body be his to enjoy instead of just toil for his housework.

Her kisses were medicine to Ross. They were filling his heart with sensations that drove him back for more. His hands continued in their exploration of her softness – her arms, her hips, the curls on the back of her neck. Demelza returned the touches with strokes of her own, on his cheeks, through his curls, the back of his head and neck, on his shoulders. Ross was still dressed, while Demelza was naked in his clutches. He only noticed when he laid her back perpendicular across the foot of the bed and felt his shirt gather under his stomach. He leaned back, still attached at the lips, and pulled off his suspenders, allowing him to lift his shirting over his head. The connection was lost, but for only an instant as he pulled the shirt off and reconnected to her. Demelza was now able to spread her fingers through his chest curls and stroke his nipples with her fingertips, fanning her hands across his broad pectoral muscles and over his shoulders.

Ross wanted her, all of her, and needed to have her surround him. He rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of his chest and further towards his hungry mouth. He could feel her slight weight on his lower body and ran his hands down her back as far as they would reach. She was so slender and curvy and she felt in Ross’s hands like a soft pelt or woven satin fabric. Demelza lay naked on top of her master, a position she never imagined herself to be in by his choice. As he ran his hands across her body, she felt each place they touched lighting up like a bonfire. The strength of his hands was tempered by the skill of his touch. Who else had he touched like this? Was it even her place to think such a question? She could not think of such things now, her master was asking with his lips and hands for more of her.

As his hands came around to her breasts, she arched her back to allow him better access. He cupped his hands around them and she purred. The throbbing in his britches lurched forward, prodding Demelza to shift and gasp. Her sounds were compelling Ross to continue to find more ways to cause her to react. Hearing that he was making her emit such sounds drove him wild. She leaned in to kiss him heartily, her lips directing her movement. She crept to his cheeks, his chin, then his neck and Ross tingled as sensations long forgotten were awakened. He could wait no longer.

He deftly rolled her over again and this time spun on his right boot to swing her to lay on her back parallel on the bed. He stood aside the bed. Her head landed on his pillow, where just a few moments before he had been reposing, staring at the ceiling and lamenting what might have been. Now it was. How mattered no longer. What was about to happen was getting close.

Ross pulled off his boots as Demelza looked up at him with only the ribbon holding her hair in place. _“I’ll have to work on releasing those locks_ ,” he thought. But before anything else, there was the biggest decision of their lives. He stepped closer to the bedside and she reached for the fastener of his britches.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He brought his hand over hers to stop her and asked “Are you certain you want this?”

“Yes, sir,” was her immediate response – no hesitation.  Her eyes were locked on his just as they had been when he first kissed her.  He hadn't seen her looking at him then because he had closed his eyes, half from fear and half from remorse.  Demelza was braver than he was in this endeavor.

There was no going back from the next moment. “Enough with the ‘sirs,’” he ordered lustfully. He leaned in to kiss her as he started to unfasten his waist button. Then he stood tall next to the bedside, dropped his britches to the floor, and climbed into the bed, nestling into Demelza. He felt the length of her body against his and felt whole for the first time in, maybe, ever. Ross shuddered.

“What is it? Did I do something wrong?” Demelza wanted to mend whatever ailed him.

Ross shuddered again. The sound of her voice was bringing him pleasure. He felt pleasure from head to toe, in his ears, on his lips, in his loins and his heart. He was awestruck. He was the one who had done this before, but he was the one with butterflies.

“Nothing is wrong,” he said. ‘ _I just don’t want to hurt you_ ,’ he thought.

He proceeded to kiss her just as he had in the parlor – a swift plant of his lips on hers, followed by the frozen-in-time sensations of feeling, touching, tasting and smelling. He was aching to do something about his throbbing length, and the time for reasoning and rational thought was over. He rose up on his forearms and pressed his pelvis into hers. Demelza gave out a quiet cry – half yelping, half singing. Ross drove himself further into her and she responded with a gasp. She was his, his alone, from now for always. Demelza clutched Ross’s shoulders, not wanting him to leave her, ever.

He looked into her face, half worried that she was pained. What he saw was her eyes, half lidded, but staring into his face. He saw no pain, but devotion. It was not the desperate devotion he had seen when they sat on the cliff above Wheal Leisure when she told him she belonged here, with him. It was an adoring devotion, a look of never-ending trust in him and what was occurring.

Ross found his point of equilibrium and rocked them both with his strong legs. Demelza entwined her right leg around his left, bending her left knee to open herself more for him. Ross grabbed at her inner thigh and continued his rocking. A moan issued from deep within him. He was the one now making sounds. His lungs needed more air for his body to carry on. He took in a deep breath. It was as he feared; the rush started a chain reaction of which he had no control. His moan became a low cry. Demelza responded with a sing-songy yelp of her own. They both were now caught in a swell of sensations, a lightning bolt moment that they both knew would result in thunder. And then it came. His ears were on fire hearing the feminine panting beneath him that was brought to a crescendo by his movements. Her focus was on him, solely him, and she took in all of it. She wanted to please him in the most desperate way, and wanted to remember how to serve him again and again.

Their bodies were tired, their hands slowed, but their lips still spoke of each others wants. Ross wanted her to know how much she meant to him. Demelza wanted Ross to know she would do anything for him. Ross lay with his head on her chest, as he regained his breath. Demelza cradled his head with her right arm and wrapped her left protectively around his shoulder. He had protected her in so many ways, so many times; this was the least she could do to repay him.

There could be no more words tonight. The last spoken being the pronouncement of the rest of their days. “Nothing is wrong,” Ross had said. And so nothing was with the coupling of Ross and Demelza. No lives are perfect, no love painless, no relationship exists without effort. But Ross meant what he said and finally said what he meant, rather than what gentrified society would do or think. She gave him the freedom to do so, and he would give her the same in return. Freedom from servitude, freedom from low-born standing, freedom from the ghosts of long ago lost futures.


End file.
